Johnson County Government has received high marks from a third-party auditing firm on our most recent financial statements and reporting, including an audit of the financials for the county’s largest capital project in history.

On Thursday, July 21, the Board of County Commissioners received the results of the 2021 financial statement audit and the 2021 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report.

“Johnson County received its 34th consecutive Certificate of Financial Reporting Achievement Award from the Government Finance Officers’ Association for the 2020 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report,” said Chairman Ed Eilert, BOCC. “Only two out of 105 counties in Kansas won this prestigious award. Approximately 18% of counties across the country have earned this achievement. We are very proud of this accomplishment.”

Chester Moyer, partner with the county’s external auditing firm, Rubin Brown, LLP, stated, “The county received an unmodified opinion, or clean opinion, on its 2021 financial statement audit, which is the highest level of opinion we give as auditors.”  

In addition to the comprehensive financial statement audit, the 2021 audit included additional testing procedures performed on the Tomahawk Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility expansion.

The $340 million Tomahawk project began construction in April 2018 and was fully operational by April 2022. The additional audit procedures included in-depth interviews with management, contract and payment application review, sampling of purchasing card transactions, cumulative spending review and approvals, journal entry review, disbursements by vendor, validation of capital asset additions and running a Benford’s Law analysis. A Benford’s Law analysis is a statistical tool to assist in flagging anomalies and discrepancies in a transaction data set.

“All transactions included appropriate underlying support, and evidence demonstrated proper approvals and internal controls were in place. There were no audit findings for the 2021 financial statement audit nor the Tomahawk project,” said Moyer.

Moyer noted that in addition to the audits of the county’s financial statements and Tomahawk, the auditors have completed their testing of the $116 million in federal Coronavirus Relief Funds, as part of the 2021 Single Audit.

“There are no findings to report thus far on the 2021 Single Audit at this time,” Moyer said.

“The Annual Comprehensive Financial Report is reviewed and used by bond rating agencies as an important tool to determine our ongoing Triple AAA bond rating, as well as by agencies that provide grant funding and other entities who assess the financial position of Johnson County,” said Becky Jones,  deputy finance director for Johnson County Government.

The 2021 report will soon be available on our website.